Shoot what it feels like

Category Archives: Photography

Amateur photographers do not understand the unavoidable use of tripods or monopods in dim lights. Therefore, their pictures come out to be blurry or unclear. Blurred photographs can now be made clear and sharp. There are tools which can also aid you to reverse the effect i.e. anonymize a photograph by blurring it.

Removal of the Red Eye

This defect is generic in photos of the people with light eye colour and when they look directly into the flash. This effect of red spot appearing in the eyes can be removed with red eye removal tool.

Temperature Control

It is a trend to get clicked in retro or solar modes. The temperatures could be adjusted with the use of smart editing tools to make your picture look as if it was clicked in early years. You can even set other colour combinations and make it look more attractive. However excessive sharpness will increase the noise; whereas extensive noise reduction will spoil the picture details. Temperature control can be used to retouch an old photograph to make it look as clear as new.

Photo Crop

Some images can include unnecessary background and might serve as a distraction from the main focus. A cropping is performed to remove the additional objects, people, landscapes, etc. At times, cropping is also done to reduce the size of a picture or to focus the subject.

Removal of Dust

Images or shots taken of plain areas might highlight the curds stuck on the sensor of a camera. To clear the spots in the final image, healing brushes are used. This flaw is generally visible if the aperture is small or lesser than f/16.

Contrast Issues or Over Exposed Images

At times, some pictures are taken in excessive bright light or in sharp sunlight and an imbalanced image is produced by a huge difference in highlighted and gloomy areas. Such images have high contrast level as they were overexposed to light. By fine-tuning the coordinates of histograms to the appropriate levels, the contrast of an image can be controlled.

Control the Size

The scaling of an image is performed to make people or objects look small or large by adjusting the pixel digits. With the concept of Thin is In almost all the photographs of models are edited to make them look thinner.

Images can be accessed on the web or Google images, etc. But, these images are usually owned by individuals or agencies. Therefore, their usage can be a legal issue.

Nowadays, there are stock image sites which have a collection of a wide variety of images that can be used.

There are two options available for using stock images:

1. Some websites offer images that can be used legally free of charge. The drawbacks of using these images:

The number of images is limited.

Images are not of very high quality.

These images are common. They are used by most bloggers, designers, etc.

2. There are websites where a monthly subscription can be purchased and their images used on a regular basis. The benefit of these sites is that the user can upload unique pictures in his content/ website. However, the drawback is that the user needs to pay for the images.

It is up to the user to decide which website to use, based on the aspects that are significant to him. The user should select images that are relevant to the content.

We can see the significance of images in modern-day marketing. Great images help in creating a bond between a brand and the consumer. So, it is vital to select high-quality images relevant to the site/ content to enhance its influence.

Remember: dust and other particles should be removed from the camera lens before each photo shoot. If you have taken photos without cleaning the lens, you will see dust on the shots. For this, you can choose the Healing Brush from the menu to get rid of the dust spots.

Readjust the levels

If you want to increase the contrast level of a photo, all you have to do is darken the shadows and brighten the highlights. You should go to the Levels and then drag the white arrow in the right direction to achieve the desired effect.

Increase the saturation

To make the colors stand out, you can increase the saturation level. So, it’s a good idea to increase the saturation in order to make your images more colorful. However, it’s a good idea to use this feature sparingly as noisy colors don’t look good at all.

Change it Back to black and white

Mono is awesome in some cases. Therefore, you may want to try out this conversion tool. You can give a go to the preset conversion to change the way colors are converted. Ideally, you should opt for presets that will give you great contrast. Make sure you don’t lose shadows or highlights.

Sharpen up

You can use this feature on the majority of digital photos. As a matter of fact, the settings will be based on whether you want to view the pictures on a computer screen or you want to get them printed. Again, use this feature sparingly in order to avoid digital noise.

Different light sources will add a different color cast to your images even though to the naked eye they appear ‘normal’. Fluorescent lighting is actually blue in color, tungsten bulbs add yellow.

The naked eye and the brain behind it are smart enough to discern these differences and therefore to us a white paper is a white paper… is a white paper!

The ‘brain’ in your camera is not quite that smart and won’t normalize the range of color temperatures that we can.

The White Balance settings in your camera are here to help as this can have a tremendous impact on the quality of the images that you take as you can take control of your camera and tell it to ‘warm up the image’ or ‘cool down the image’.

Look up the settings for your individual camera’s white balance mode. You can do this manually or in most cases these days, have preset white balance settings.

Below are some of the basic white balance settings that most cameras will have:

Auto- this is where the camera makes a best guess on a shot by shot basis. You’ll find it works in many situations but it’s worth venturing out of it for trickier lighting.

Tungsten-this setting will generally cool down the colors in your photos.

Fluorescent- this setting will generally warm up the colors in your photos.

Daylight/Sunny- tends to keep the white balance in a kind of ‘neutral’ state.

Cloudy- this setting generally warms things up a touch more than ‘daylight’ mode.

Flash- the flash of a camera can be quite a cool light so in Flash WB mode you’ll find it warms up your shots a touch.

Shade- will warm things up a touch.

Manually adjusting the White Balance

You can actually get pretty decent shots by using the above preset values. You can however, learn how to do this manually.

The basics behind adjusting things manually will remain the same even though the way you do it will vary from camera to camera.

In essence, you will set up a reference point for your camera (what white/grey actually is) and your camera will know that this is white.

You can then manually adjust the warmth factor up or down appropriately dependent on the conditions under which you are shooting!

As with everything else in photography this is one of the basics. Once you actually understand how to warm or cool an image, feel free to go nuts on the settings to get whatever effect you are actually after.

Winter and Snow means – lots of dark and white! Our camera generally do a pretty good job of exposing our images correctly for us – but, when it comes to scenes with lots of black or white it can struggle.

Every camera is designed to expose as close to medium grey as possible, which is fine for an evenly lit scene, but in a situation like a snowy day with lots of sunshine, your camera sees all that bright white and tries to balance it by underexposing the entire scene. The answer is to dial in between +1 and +2 stops of exposure compensation.

You should be able to do this with any reasonable spec camera from a compact through to a DSLR. Try it and see how white your snow becomes!

Shoot raw OR with a warmer white balance

Shooting raw rather than jpeg gives you the opportunity to recover a lot of detail from any blown highlights in post-production, should you overdo the exposure compensation. You’ll also have a chance to deal with any white balance issues that might occur because your camera will probably make your snow look a little blue. If your camera doesn’t have the ability to shoot raw don’t worry! Choosing a warmer white balance – either cloudy or flash – should get you in the right ballpark.

Do not forget spare batteries

Because batteries drain much quicker in cold conditions it’s a good idea to have a couple of spares with you. Instead of leaving them in your bag you can keep them warm by putting them in a pocket close to your skin.

Click without waiting to check

Click… click..click – follow the basic digital photography rule to avoid losing the important moment. Winter and snow can be tough time to do family portraits outside when everyone will want to quickly get into warmer insides OR to even hold camera with your fingers and nose freezing – so, do not wait for the perfect moment but keep clicking! You are bound to capture many beautiful moments.

• You have a better business value – While your guests and clients notice professional photographers present at your event, they tend to value you more as it brings about a skilled touch to your work. While you have professional and high quality images of your event for showcasing on your website and brochures, you get to bring about an appeal that is professional.

• Proficient services – While they come along with a set of high quality equipment to capture your event, they would ensure the fact that you do not have to instruct them on anything after an initial briefing. If it is a large event, they would ensure that several photographers in the team would capture the event from different angles.

• Helps in future business prospects – While you have a stock of high-quality images to showcase your clients, you have better chances of business for the days to come. Your employees can use them as references and also helping you bring out a good picture of your company o the world.

• Creates a good memory for your organisation – While you collect photographs from your employees and guests that they have captured during the event, there is a variation in the quality of the photographs that you may not like to preserve. While the photographer captures the best photographs of the moments from your event, you get to have a collection of the best photographs of the same quality that would not only enhance the look of your collection but would look appealing as well.

However, problem with those regular, non-digital frames is that you can only display one picture. So if you want to share ten pictures you will need ten different frames. That’s not a practical thing to do. Today, given our lifestyle and our reliance on digital media so much, we need something that could multitask even if it is a display item. Digital photo frames are thus your best bet. These are specifically designed for showcasing multiple photos of you or whoever you want to gift to. They give a brilliant and novel look wherever you intend to keep them. You can enthrall anyone with the idea of displaying his/her pictures in digital format without using any gadget.

They come handy with Wi-Fi connection, SD card or USB port. These are the sources that display your photographs in digital format. Some also have Bluetooth and printer application through which you can easily send commands to printer and take out hard copy of your favorite pictures.

One of the most interesting features about them is the extensive connectivity these offer. All the time you can connect with Facebook or WhatsApp, in the same way you do on your computer, mobile phone or laptop. You can easily share your pictures with your family and friends, just enter the email address to which you want to share pictures and enjoy amazing, uplifting comments.

Digital photo frames come in varied shapes, sizes, colors and features. The best is the one with rotating display feature. It keeps updating everyone. Timed display is yet another interesting feature where you set time to change the display after a specific interval. It cannot get more customizable than this, isn’t it!

Understand that pressing the shutter is only half of making a good photograph.

Modern cameras are no match for the human eye, and still have lots of limitations, especially in low light situations.

Post-processing has been done since the invention of photography (either in a traditional darkroom or on a computer). This is where you polish your final images, and make adjustments to compensate for the constraints of the camera.

Select and present only the very best images from a photo shoot.

Store a back-up copy of their images onto an external hard drive, or somewhere safe.

Publish photographs, so they aren’t destined to die on a dusty hard drive, unseen by the world.

Share their work to get constructive feedback from peers, (e.g. via on-line galleries such as 500px, Flickr, Google Photos, Instagram or a Facebook group.)

Present their images as a means of self-expression; their contribution to recording the world, from their point of view, (e.g. framed photos, greeting cards, calendars, art galleries, photo-books, or merely as prints inside a simple photo album).

Panning is a photography technique that is mostly used to shoot moving objects such as sports cars, race competitions. It involves the horizontal, rotational and vertical movement of an image or video. To achieve best results of a sharp subject with a blurred background, you need to stay with an object as you frame and press the shutter button. It is among the old techniques, so it needs a lot of practice and patience to master.

Thirds rule

It is a method that is frequently used by artists and painters. Work produced using the technique can be found in art galleries. The rule of thirds method involves breaking down the photo in thirds, vertically and horizontally to have nine parts. The focus object is usually not placed in the middle which results to it being interesting, moving and dynamic. Factors to consider are the point of interest and the frame. Mentally divide your viewfinder into three to frame the shot.

Golden hour

Also referred to as the magic hour, it is the first hour of sunrise and last time of the sunset. The light is of different quality thus add quality and interest to the photo. It requires one to be fast for the quality of light fades quickly

Fill flash

This technique involves filling the dark areas of an image using flash. The background of the picture is usually brighter than the subject. A photographer needs to adjust the shutter and aperture speed to expose the background. The circumstances when to use flash are:

• When foreground light is less than in the background

• When close to the focus subject

Long exposure

It is an effect that creates a dreamy landscape, it both captures still elements and moving. Objects in motion usually are blurred. The photographer narrows the aperture and sets the shutter to a long duration speed.